It has been nearly six years since David Feherty’s son Shey died from a cocaine overdose on his 29th birthday — and still, the golf presenter blames himself.
Having struggled with addictions of his own, Feherty routinely gave Shey money, knowing full well his plans for it.
“The truth is, I couldn’t resist the kid,” he tells author John Feinstein in “Feherty – The Remarkably Funny and Tragic Journey of Golf’s David Feherty” (Hachette).
“He’d ask me for money and swear it wasn’t for drugs, and I believed him.
“I believed him because I wanted to believe him. I knew he was lying. I was lying, too — to myself.”
His son’s 2017 death resulted in the end of a decade of sobriety for Feherty.
His ex-wife and Shey’s mother, Caroline, held him responsible.
“The sad irony is that Caroline didn’t need to convince David to blame himself for Shey’s death,” writes Feinstein.
“He did then; he does now.”
Born in 1958, David William Feherty grew up in Northern Ireland.
His actual name should have been William David Feherty, but his father, Billy, was drunk when he registered his birth.
As a child, Feherty lived in a modest 1,200-square-foot house in the seaside town of Bangor, 12 miles east of the capital Belfast, sharing a bedroom with his younger sister, Deborah.
“She used to grind her teeth and snore,” he tells Feinstein.
A talented singer and musician, he found school boring, the result of undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
Instead, he drifted towards sports.
“I was mad keen for soccer and rugby,” he says. “But once I got bitten by golf, that was it.”
At age 10, he caddied for his dad at Bangor Golf Club and, whenever the coast was clear, he would sneak on and play for free until he was thrown off by members.
The golf club was where Feherty first learned to drink, at 14.
“We’d go hang out in the bike sheds and drink: beer, cheap wine, vodka, whatever we could get our hands on.”
When he turned professional in 1976, he did so knowing he wasn’t really good enough.
He was right — his first paycheck was just $7.50.
Success would come — he would eventually win five times on the European Tour — but with it came loaded with temptation.
In 1986, after winning the Scottish Open in Glasgow, for example, Feherty celebrated with members of the band Led Zeppelin.
Two days later, he woke up on Gleneagles golf course, 50 miles away, as the band’s manager, Peter Grant, poked him with a stick.
“I have absolutely no idea how I ended up there,” he tells Feinstein.
“The worst part was that the trophy was gone. To this day, I have no idea how I lost it or when I lost it, and it was never found.”
It wasn’t just drinking.
Feherty has also smoked marijuana, used cocaine, and even tried heroin.
After escaping the “nine-year hostage situation” of his first marriage to Caroline, his second wife, Anita, found him so thin from drinking and taking drugs that she worried he might have AIDS.
Depression is also an ever-present companion.
Each day, Feherty takes 13 tablets for conditions ranging from ADD to hypertension.
There is Vraylar for his bipolar disorder, the antidepressant Cymbalta, and the mood stabilizer Lamictal. “There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not sad at some point,” he says in the book.
“I fight a constant fight to keep being sad from becoming depressed.”
For a while, cycling helped alleviate his symptoms.
Then in 2008, he got hit by a truck, leaving him with a collapsed lung, three broken ribs, a separated left shoulder, and a crushed left elbow.
The accident ended his golf career.
“My addiction to painkillers was the result of pain in my elbows — and the pain from my first marriage,” he says.
In 2015, after a third serious accident, Feherty quit cycling.
Increasingly, though, his comic genes always pull him through.
In an interview with Golf Magazine in 2006, Feherty responded to actor Tom Cruise’s suggestion that the only cure for depression was physical exercise, not drugs or therapy. “Actually, some sort of exercise would have helped me,” he said.
“If I kicked the hell out of Tom Cruise, I’d feel a lot better about myself.”
In 2007, meanwhile, he took aim at six-time major winner Nick Faldo at a charity fundraiser in Baltimore.
Faldo had become known for dating women much younger than him and was due to captain the European Ryder Cup team in Louisville, Ky., the following week.
“Turns out Nick is going to have to leave early,” Feherty told the audience.
“He’s going to need to fly home to London to be present at the birth of his next wife.”
He doesn’t always hit the mark.
When he described Scotland’s Ryder Cup star Colin Montgomerie as “having a face like a warthog stung by a wasp” and looking like Robin Williams in “Mrs. Doubtfire,” the nickname stuck – and Montgomerie wasn’t happy.
Soon, Montgomerie became US fans’ number one target and was the victim of some horrific abuse, especially during the Ryder Cup at Massachusetts’ Brookline Country Club in 1999.
That week, a furious Montgomerie hurled a plate of Caesar salad at Feherty during dinner.
“I never found out if Colin got anything to eat that night,” he said later.
“I suspect he did.”
Feherty’s role as golf’s court jester helps mask a never-ending battle with his demons.
“He’s fallen off the wagon and climbed back on so many times he long ago lost count,” writes Feinstein. “He believes in both his ability to get drunk and stay drunk and his ability to get sober again.
“But he readily admits, ‘I white-knuckle every day trying to stay sober.’”
But when Feherty’s wife Anita found him in their garage with a bottle of vodka in 2016, she packed him off to rehab in Rochester, Minn..
He was meant to be there for 28 days.
He lasted 12.
“He left without checking out, went to the airport, and had four drinks while waiting for his plane,” writes Feinstein.
“So much for getting sober.”
Feherty’s ability to entertain ensures he’s never wanted for work.
There are corporate speaking gigs for $65,000 per appearance, magazine columns, and books, including “Somewhere in Ireland a Village Is Missing an Idiot.”
There have been stand-up comedy tours and even an NBC sitcom, called “F,” with Feherty playing himself (“shot and then abandoned before the pilot even aired because it was so bad,” writes Feinstein.)
Famously, he also hosted “Feherty” on the Golf Channel where, over the course of 10 years, he recorded 150 interviews, meeting every big name in golf and four presidents, including Donald Trump, twice.
Last summer, Feherty signed a lucrative deal as lead analyst at the new Saudi-backed LIV Golf. Unlike players who have moved to LIV, he was entirely honest about why. “They paid me a lot of money,” he said.
Today, Feherty, 64, is an American citizen, living on his farm outside Dallas, Texas.
He has a lathe in his garage and makes single-shot sniper rifles, using them on his target range. Occasionally, he’ll shoot a feral pig “because if I don’t, they’ll destroy the whole place.”
For Feherty, target shooting has replaced AA meetings.
“Addicts need something to be addicted to,” he tells Feinstein.
“I’ve gone from alcohol and drugs to bicycles to guns.”
The secret is keeping busy.
“I’ve always done better in my life when I’m doing something. During my first marriage, traveling and playing golf — and alcohol and drugs — were my escape from the pain.
“Now, working, whether it’s television, stand-up, or speaking, is my escape from the pain of Shey’s death.”